Google replaces Diane Greene as head of its cloud business

Former Oracle executive Thomas Kurian will replace Greene as CEO of Google Cloud, she announced in a blog post Friday. Kurian will join the company on November 26 and will assume the leadership role in January, Greene said. Greene will continue to serve as CEO until then.

Greene, who has served as CEO of Google Cloud since December 2015, said she hadn’t originally planned to stay in the position this long. After stepping down from the role, she plans to focus on mentoring and backing female entrepreneurs and on education technology projects.

“After an unbelievably stimulating and productive three years, it’s time to turn to the passions I’ve long had around mentoring and education,” she said in the post.

Even after stepping down as Google Cloud’s CEO, Greene will remain on the board of Google parent company Alphabet, she said in the post. She’s served as a director of the company since 2012.

In a short statement, Google CEO Sundar Pichai praised Greene’s work on the company’s cloud efforts.

“I have deep appreciation for everything Diane has done and I’m super happy that we’ll continue to benefit from her wisdom as she continues serving on our board of directors,” he said.

Greene is the founder and former CEO of VMware. She’s been under fire of late because Google Cloud has become a distant also-ran to Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure in the cloud-computing market.

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